The Other Night
by Esmarias
Summary: A few humorous occurences compiled into one night at the station. In-progress
1. Chapter 1

**The Other Night...**

**Chapter 1: Nightmares**

Mike cried out loudly as he sat bolt upright in his bed. No longer restrained, his arms flew to protectively hug his middle where Dr. Mordary had started in on him. Gasping for air and a bit disoriented, he looked around. It had seemed so real! But now he was back at the station, in the dorms, instead of a hospital-like basement laboratory. He was in his bunk in the dark room, and not on a cold metal operating table. Across the room from him, Cap slept on his stomach with one side of his face smooshed into his pillow. Quickly pulling up his white shirt, Mike put tentative fingers to the soft smooth skin of his tortured abdomen and probed. Nothing. No blood; no knives; no unwilling organ donations. No madmen. No dissections. He was fine. He was fine. Everything was all right now. It was just a dream. '_It was just a dream.'_ This fast-paced mantra continued on in his head until he had slowed his racing heart and controlled his too-rapid breathing some.

Closing his eyes for a second, Mike could still see Dr. Mordary's face leering over him, the "lovely specimen", with a surgical scalpel in one hand and an evil gleam in his dark eyes. Even after a few moments, the image did not go away like it should. He needed to wake up some more, do something – anything – to make sure of himself that he was back in the real world before even trying to go back into the sleep one. He had the perfect idea. He had never done this before, but right now it seemed the best option to distract himself from the lingering images of his nightmare.

"Chet," Mike growled, throwing back his covers. The sheets were already mangled from having tossed, turned, and kicked in them for most of the night. Twisting around, Mike sat up on his knees. Crossing his arms on top of the brick wall divider between his bed and the next, he glared down at the figure who was sleeping peacefully in the bunk on the other side.

"That is the LAST time we are watching one of your horror movies before bed!" he began ranting in a loud whisper to his shiftmate. Pointing to himself, he continued with, "Next movie night, _I'm_ picking the flick!"

Marco cracked an eye open a bit to watch the quietest man on their shift rant to his amigo. Lopez couldn't help a small grin as he listened and observed.

"It can be about rainbows, flowers, ponies, little blue bunny wabbits and pink unicorns for all I care! Just no more horrors, comprende?"

Chet was totally oblivious to his stationmate's ranting.

"And another thing-"

"_**Shhh!**_"

He didn't know who that had come from (although he suspected it was his Captain), but it warned him that he had steadily been raising his voice. Now speaking softer than when he had started, he continued, "And another thing: why is it that whenever there's actually something good on the tube that you have to call it a movie night and pick something scary? Why couldn't we watch the one about the dinosaurs, huh? I wanted to see that one. Dinosaurs would have been better. Least it wouldn't've given me nightmares. And who knows? _Maybe it would actually have had an interesting plot!_" Mike spoke that last part through clenched teeth. "Hate to break it to ya, pal, but... Okay, you know what? I apologize. I lied. I don't hate to break it to you and for the record, just because I apologized it doesn't mean I'm sorry. If it weren't for all the big things that jumped out at you through the movie, and I speak for everyone when I say this, we all would've been falling out of our chairs from pure boredom throughout the whole thing!"

Somebody snickered from across the room. DeSoto, most likely, since he almost literally _had_ fallen out of his chair. But whether his falling asleep was from boredom or mere weariness from back-to-back runs in the squad that day, only Roy knew the answer.

"And the special effects were _Lauw-Zee_. I mean, come on! I don't know anything about computer generated effects, but I bet even _I_ could do better."

Someone was trying to cover their faint chuckling with a quiet cough, but it didn't quite work.

"Not to mention the beast that was supposed to scare everyone out of the forest. Anyone could tell that that was a guy in a big, bulky costume. It was _so_ obvious that it took all the scary out of it. And thinking about how much the guy in the suit was being paid to do _that_? It made me wonder how much time it took him to practice getting those corny attacks right, so it ended up looking more silly to me than scary!"

Mike was so caught up in his rant that he was completely unaware that by now, Roy and Marco were wide awake and listening to every word he was saying.

"And don't even get me _started_ on the stunt men! _Several_ times they screwed up and fixed their faces on the camera – you could tell it wasn't the real actors – again I say: so obvious! And location! The quote-end-quote _"haunted"_ forest had patches of light everywhere in it! It's not very scary if it's as bright as any other old wood. Makeup? It looked as if those guys' faces were melting like wax candles! Oh, if you want me to get _really_ picky, the costumes were totally inconsistent with the time frame. And tell me, what direct relevance to the movie does the main character's affair with Princess Shauna have? I'm tellin' ya, I didn't see where their midnight smooching fit in anywhere! The moment wasn't right, either. First, they're saying there's this monster out to get them, and then they're _kissing_? Seriously? That's not likely to happen! If you want my opinion, they were just trying to fill up space there. That thing they dare call an award-winning movie was a complete waste of time! What kind of idiot critics dared review it and give it good marks, anyhow? Geeze, those guys must've felt sorry for 'em or something, because a good critic would've slammed 'em - I know I would've. Unless, of course, they're all idiots too.

As Mike went on to point out all the flaws of the terrible movie, he was, at the same time, reassuring himself of how totally _un_scary it really was. And to his surprise, it made him feel better. Maybe ranting could be considered a healthy thing to do every once in a while. Whenever someone annoyed him, all he usually did was drop a subtle hint to, in more or no words, _back off_. And technically, he wasn't even directly annoyed at Chet Kelly right now, just annoyed that Chet Kelly's choice of entertainment that evening had resulted in Mike's restless night.

When he was finally through, he flopped back down on his back and pulled the covers up. Rolling over onto his side, Mike continued to mutter in the darkness. His complaints gradually softened to unintelligible mumbles before ceasing altogether.

After drifting for a few minutes, Mike was finally about to fall back asleep, but was woken once again by the ringing of the dorm telephone. Groaning quietly when it broke the silence, he hoped fervently that someone would pick it up instead of letting it ring loudly all night. The klaxons they could deal with – the very sound of the alarm instantly brought them out of the land of nod and gave them an adrenaline rush which quickly woke them up enough to do their jobs. But phones? At this time of night, phones were just downright annoying.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Other Night...**

**Chapter 2: Bickering**

Captain Stanley woke at the incessant ringing of a nearby telephone. Keeping his eyes closed, he groaned and got out of bed. Blindly reaching for the black receiver, he sat in the chair by the nearby desk and said clearly, "Station 51, Captain Stanley speaking."

Less than three seconds later, his eyes were open and all drowsiness had dissipated in an instant. "Uh, could you hold on for just a minute?" he quickly requested. Standing up, he hung up the phone. Returning to his bunk, he slipped on his turnouts and boots. Grabbing his navy blue department jacket from the end of the bed where he had slipped it off and dropped earlier, Hank pulled it back on and made his way to the office.

Entering his office, he turned on the light and shut the door. Then he went to the phone on the desk and picked it up. To his dismay, he found that it was sticky from having spilled some lemonade on it earlier. When the klaxons had sounded, abruptly disrupting the silence of his office and calling the engine out on a run earlier that day, Hank had immediately jumped up from his chair. Unfortunately, in doing so, he had accidentally knocked his hand against his glass and spilled some of the cold, sugary liquid remaining in it all over the handle of the phone. He hadn't had time to clean it up, and then he later forgot about it. Oops.

Picking it up, he sat in his chair and dialed a familiar number. He'd clean it later.

After a few minutes of talking to his wife, Hank hung up the phone. Leaning back in his chair, he let out a deep breath. He hoped it was just a 24-hour bug. His six-year-old daughter Kristen had been catching lots of sicknesses lately. Em wouldn't have called him like this if she didn't think it was important. He could only cross his fingers and hope that his youngest hadn't caught something more serious than the flu... again.

Hank got up and left the office, turning off the light on his way out. As he came out, he turned right to go around the back of the squad and engine and go through the locker room. His hands were a little sticky now from holding the phone, so he decided to wash his hands before going back to bed.

Hank jumped in surprise when he turned on the light and saw one of his crewmen sitting on the wooden bench by the far wall. Leaned back against the locker behind him, his eyes were closed. Even though the light had been flicked on, he didn't notice and was startled when Cap addressed him.

"Stoker?" Hank inquired with a frown, "Why aren't you in bed?"

Mike inhaled sharply as his eyes flew open at the sound of his Captain's voice. Blinking a few times to clear his vision, Mike realized he had been about to fall asleep... again. Glancing at Captain Stanley, he chuckled softly before replying vaguely, "No rest for the weary, huh?"

"Why are you out here?" Hank was a little sorry he had woken him up. He quickly washed and dried his hands before offering one of them to his engineer. Mike sat up and took it and Hank pulled his man to his feet.

"I'll show you." Mike gestured for Cap to follow him. Hank did so, somewhat puzzled at Mike's behavior.

As soon as the two men reentered the dorm room, bickering could clearly be heard.

"Cut it out!"

"No, you cut it out!"

"I told you to cut it out first!"

"Quit shoving!"

"Who's shoving?"

"You are!"

"I am not!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are!"

"Shut up, Kelly!"

"What'd _I_ do? You're the one who won't cut it out!"

"And you're the one who won't shut up!"

"Why should I shut up?"

"Because unless you shut up, I won't cut it out!"

Hank opened his mouth and was about to order them _both_ to shut up and go back to sleep... before he realized that they both were _already_ asleep. Sort of.

Poor Roy. Glancing over at the senior medic, Hank saw him sitting cross-legged on his bunk, his elbow on his knee and face resting on his fist. The two men made eye contact before Roy resumed watching his partner argue with Chet in his sleep. DeSoto's expression was an odd mixture of interest, amusement and irritation.

Turning his head to the left, Hank found that he couldn't see Marco's face because the man had rolled over onto his stomach and stuck his pillow over his head to block out the noise.

Looking back at Mike, all he saw in his second-in-command's face was an expression that seemed to read, '_Yes, I agree that this is amusing, but I'm tired and want to go back to sleep._"

Hank had to admit that, under the circumstances, this _was_ kind of funny. Except that he, too, wanted to go back to bed and get some more rest before the morning tones went off or the klaxons sounded. Had it not been the middle of the night, Hank might have let this bit of entertainment go on for awhile before putting an end to it. But, as it was...

"How long has this been going on?" he asked Roy.

"Since after the phone rang. It woke 'em up enough for them to voice their arguments, but not enough to actually understand what they're doing," Roy replied softly. "They probably won't remember any of it by tomorrow morning."

"You mean _this_ morning," came a muffled comment from Marco. All the while, Johnny and Chet continued their midnight argument about absolutely nothing.

"Well, let's wake them up and then go back to sleep," Hank suggested with a tired sigh.

Roy uncrossed his legs and slid off the side of his bunk to try and wake his partner. Since Marco didn't make a move to get out of bed, Mike went over to take care of Chet. Hank stood in the middle, observing their progress.

The bad news was that Stoker and DeSoto didn't wake their shiftmates. The good news was that in the end they didn't have to. Johnny and Chet's voices had steadily risen as they continued to argue.

"Stop it!"

"Stop!"

"Chet – Stop!"

Johnny's eyes suddenly flew open and Roy backed away. The younger medic had apparently spoken so loud that he had woken himself up. Too tired to try and figure out what had happened, Johnny closed his eyes and seconds later his breaths had evened out in sleep again.

Since Johnny had stopped speaking and he had no-one else to argue with, Kelly finally shut up and the linesman fell back to sleep as well. Across from him, Marco sighed in relief that the noisy argument was over with and pulled his head out from under his pillow. Flipping onto his back, he turned his head to see if his amigo really was asleep now. Satisfied, he closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep himself for the remainder of the evening.

"So who started it?" Captain Stanley couldn't help asking.

"I don't know; I just woke up to them arguing," Mike answered first.

"Ditto," Marco supplied without opening his eyes.

Roy said, "I'm pretty sure it was Johnny, but I could be wrong. Anyway, it would be useless to ask them tomorrow-"

"_Today,"_ Marco corrected.

"Because," Roy continued, "they either won't remember it, or else it'll all be like some sort of dream to them. And if the latter is the case, than in their heads you can bet that the other man was the one to start it. And Mike," he addressed the engineer quietly, "unless you were talking in your sleep earlier, I thought you were already awake when the phone rang."

"Technically not, since I'd been sort of sleeping up to then. Then, when I did bother to open my eyes, those two were bickering."

"That was you talking?" Hank asked Mike.

"Ranting," Roy corrected.

Mike cracked a small, sheepish smile. "Yeah, Cap. You didn't know? Didn't you shush me?"

"Honestly I cared more about whoever it was shutting their trap unless they wanted latrines for their chore next shift."

"Well, he didn't," DeSoto said with a grin. "Didn't shut his trap, I mean. He kept on for at least another three minutes after you shushed 'im. Does he still get latrines?"

Mike glared at the man. "Thanks a lot, pal" he said sarcastically.

"No problem; anytime."

"No, I'm sorry Roy, but that obligation still falls to you."

"Me? Why me?"

"Rotation."

"But you just said-"

"You're right, Roy. I did just say. I just said that you're still doing your assigned chore."

"But w-"

"Because I'm the Captain, that's why. No if's, but's, or maybe's about it. Now," here he yawned widely, "I also say let's get back to bed."

"Yes," Marco declared from the other side of the room. "Please go to bed."

Hank and Mike both turned to go back to their bunks. Mike yawned as he slipped back under his covers and lay down to sleep. Roy yawned as well as he climbed into bed. "Geeze, Cap; those yawns of yours are contagious!" he said.

"Mph," was the only response from the other side of the brick divider, and the last sound that Roy heard before falling back to sleep.


End file.
